In Defending His Pal Desmond, Lennon Reminds Celtic Fans That He Was Part Of The Malaise.

There is a difference between being a top law school graduate and being a top lawyer. Some of the most effective courtroom performers didn’t go to top law schools and didn’t graduate “cum laude.”

Because one of the things that makes a great lawyer is courtroom strategy, and that takes on various forms. One of which is being able to spot what helps you and what hurts you.

If I were defending the current board, I would not use Neil Lennon as a character witness. In fact, I could think of few sillier things to do.

The prosecution would be rubbing their hands.

In their shoes I would play that Peter Lawwell interview over and over and over again, the one about admitting that he didn’t even consider the others who submitted their CV’s, the one where he essentially said that Lennon was offered the job for a second time in the Hampden showers.

“Be careful what you wish for,” is the message Lennon is sending, according to the media.

Really? I know this much, very few of us had wished for him in the dugout after Brendan Rodgers the first time, and the shock of it reverberated through our support and flattened, in an instant, which should have been a party atmosphere to commemorate 3Treble.

And it was a disaster, and everything about it stunk to high heaven and it reminded us, all of us, of the nature of the men we had running the club; handing out baubles to their pals instead of doing what was right for Celtic. It was an appalling and indefensible decision and one that should have seen all involved off the premises when Lennon himself fell.

Of course, Lennon is defending these people. His judgement on them is as flawed as their judgement on him is, and it’s based on them all being mates.

It’s certainly not based on merit because Lennon certainly didn’t merit the Celtic job on either occasion he got it, just as Desmond, who has run Celtic through various other people and keeps his own money jammed in his pockets, has not managed a game or scored a goal or saved a penalty.

I am tired of directors trying to claim credit for the sterling work other people do. Even Lennon’s successes were in spite of those people and not because of them.

A year after his greatest moment in management, beating Barcelona, we were on the other end of Champions League hidings because the people he’s defending systematically weakened his team prior to every Champions League round. That was his reward for getting us past an elite side; he got shafted and I don’t know why he thinks they deserve to be protected in this way.

Desmond can go any time he likes.

If someone can point out to me what function this absentee landlord of ours serves any longer, I’ll be happy to take it on board. But no-one can because no-one knows the answer to that question.

He rarely attends games. He never attends the AGM where he might have to face ordinary fans. He hasn’t spent a penny on Celtic beyond the share purchase; he contributes nothing to this club except to enfeeble it by stacking the board with his placemen and pals.

These people have been at the helm for too damned long. If Desmond is serious about handing over the reins, he should just do it and get it over with and take himself off the board. The idea that he offers Celtic leadership is farcical, because we’ve been stuck in the mud for more than a decade.

The best thing that ever happened to these people was the collapse of Rangers, because the record reflects that before Whyte pulled the handle and flushed them down the pan, they had won three titles in a row; that was how well managed we were.

More and more, our fans have come to believe that the real measure of these people has been the slide in our standing in Europe. These people have been shielded by the weakness and amateur incompetence across the city, and if that club is getting its act together we’re in for some hard times because our leaders lack any strategic vision at all.

This is what happens when cronyism and nepotism replace sound strategy.

You get people like Lennon defending people like Desmond, and all our former manager has succeeded in doing here is to remind us that he was part of the problem, a big part of it, the man with his hand on the tiller when we lost the ten in a row title race, a man not qualified for the job, a man who shouldn’t have been near it and who the rest of football doesn’t rate at all.

And you know what?

Lennon did the best he could with the tools he has, and although I think it was an act of selfishness to take the job when part of him must have known he wasn’t up to it, I think most people would have done the same thing and I’ve never really held it against him … a lot of managers who knew they weren’t up to it would have said yes.

The responsibility lay with the people whose job it was to hire the best person, and Lennon’s intervention on behalf of the only board of a European level club who thought he was a suitable candidate, does nothing except drive home our point; these people shouldn’t be trusted with the helm at Celtic for one minute longer.

Frankly, they should never have lasted this long.

“The prosecution wishes to enter Neil Lennon into evidence, as Exhbit A.”